Karen Commins

One word of advice: PRACTICE

20 May 2009

My extended absence from my blog is due in part to an amazing 2-week cruise from Miami to Los Angeles through the Panama Canal. As faithful readers of this blog know, I always observe lessons applicable to voiceover when I travel, and this latest trip was no exception.

Every cruise ship director hires a variety of performers who must amuse and entertain the passengers. The nightly shows during our sailing on the glorious Norwegian Pearl were particularly enjoyable. We heard pianist Nadia Zaitsev perform some incredibly complex arrangements of Bach, Beatles, Gershwin, and Chopin before tackling a truly thrilling rendition of Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. Another night, we watched a guy known as Los Gauchos twirl rope with balls at each end with such terrific speed so that it looked like swirling laser beams encircling him. Okay, it sounds like a lame act, but trust me, this guy was mesmerizing. We watched Professor Watson move effortlessly between solos on fiddle, mandolin, and trumpet in successive songs.

With each performer, I first admired their talent. My second thought was about the enormous number of hours that each must have spent in practice of his or her art in order to perform flawlessly before the audience. As voice talent, we also have the responsibility of practicing before we’re in front of an audience, whether that audience is face-to-face, as in a studio session, or virtual in an on-line audition.

During our trip, fellow voiceover artist Terry Daniel wrote an article on his blog about the merits of practice. Terry wisely points out that voice talent have a perpetual need to voice copy out-loud in order to find the best technique and interpretation.

When I’m on vacation, I usually do practice voiceover almost every day. I’ll read aloud the ingredients of shampoo bottles (great practice for medical narrations), the ship’s daily newsletter (practice for travel narrations), and books (practice for audiobook narration and characterizations). However, I admit that I have been lax sometimes about practicing voiceover while at home.

While many people think that voiceover work is simply talking or reading aloud, the ability to read smoothly out-loud is just the starting point in this career. I always encourage newcomers to read everything out-loud in order to bring some reality to their dream.

As a voice talent gets some paid jobs and starts growing a business, it’s easy to forego practice for the sake of practice. We may think we get all the voiceover practice that we need in doing auditions. If you view an audition as part of the job of being a voice talent, though, you can see dedicated practice is necessary before undertaking any auditions.

In addition to Terry’s article, I read a couple of other things recently that re-affirm to me the necessity of constant voiceover practice. An editorial in the New York Times reminds me that reading aloud is a very different physical experience than reading silently. Also, comprehension can be measured by a person’s skill in reading out loud because “…it reveals far more than whether the reader understands the words. It reveals how far into the words — and the pattern of the words — the reader really sees.”

Even more interesting to me is the assertion made by voice talent Anthony Mendez in his insightful and fascinating e-book titled Meditation for Voice-Over: The Voice Actor’s Guide to Not Worrying and Reducing Stress. I liked this ebook immensely because Anthony applies some Law of Attraction and mind power principles to increasing one’s voiceover business. He lists 3 Ms as the benefits of voiceover practice in front of the mic:

1) Your muscles become strong.
2) Your muses conspire to help you realize your intentions.
3) Your mind is focused on a single point, which causes manifestation to occur more quickly.

(Hmmm…maybe that should be 4 Ms!)

Anthony further states that by doing, you will BE.

I can think of no better reason to practice voiceover every day. Toward that end, it’s my intention to record this and future blog posts as part of my practice sessions.

Do you practice voice-over? I’d love to get your thoughts on this topic, so please leave a comment on the blog.

Voiceover and the Law of Paradoxical Intent

5 April 2009

The numerous new-age, Law of Attraction books that I have read all state that you have to detach from the outcome if you want your desires to be fulfilled. Recently, I read about the Law of Paradoxical Intent and had an epiphany concerning the progress of my voiceover career.

In her brilliant, thought-provoking book Secrets of Success: The Science and Spirit of Real Prosperity, Sandra Anne Taylor explains this law as follows:

This law says that the more desperate you are about achieving your goal, the more you’ll push it away, actually creating the opposite — or the paradox — of your desire.

So many people never even realize that it’s the negative energy associated with their own needy attachment that’s sabotaging the results they’re looking for. This is a very common phenomenon….

Negative energy.jpg

Picture of negative energy

When your desire becomes a large part of your life, it’s a natural emotional response to become hopeful about the outcome. It’s very important, though, to reel in any fear, urgency, or neediness because those vibrations are both resistant and repulsive, causing you to move out of the synchronistic flow of Universal manifestation.

You become attached to the result when you value the future over the present. This creates vibrations of desperation, jagged waves of energy that push against the current of abundance, sending away that which you desire most. Remember, the natural flow of the Universe is love and peace, but when you move in the direction of frantic worry, you counter that intention, magnetizing more effort and disappointment in the process.

You have to do things to progress your dream without being tied to a particular conclusion. You can’t expect the Universe to provide without taking appropriate action aligned to your thoughts. Before you roll your eyes and think “she’s writing about woo-woo stuff again”, let me give you some real-life examples of this principle.

While on my IRS job, I observed someone who desperately wanted a promotion. This person is the sole money-earner for the family and has a great need and desire to earn more money. This person was praying every day for a promotion and was convinced it would soon materialize.

You might think that this person was working extra every week, asking to help others with their work, and generally becoming an indispensable member of the team. Instead, this person is completely unreliable, taking leave every single week and not finishing the simplest tasks for months.

At first, the sympathetic manager wanted to find a way to promote the person. After further inspection of the person’s work ethic and leave patterns, though, the manager decided to cancel any move toward a promotion. In fact, the manager is now documenting the performance of the employee and may take an adverse action.

Sometimes it’s easier to learn from the experiences of others than to see how these Universal laws apply to oneself. I therefore was a bit shocked to discover I also had unknowingly integrated the Law of Paradoxical Intent in pursuing my voiceover career.

The facts:

I desperately wanted to be a full-time voice actor instead of working full-time at the IRS.
Drew and I agreed that we needed to save $X in the bank in order for me to take an early retirement if one were offered to me. I had been desperate (there’s that word again) for an early-out for the last 5 years. (The early retirement thing is subject to a bunch of government rules that are out of my control and too dull to relate here.)
I spent a lot of money on classes, equipment such as an ISDN box and marketing materials in order to make my voiceover dream happen. I added up my expenditures and found I actually had spent the equivalent of the $X we decided we needed to save PLUS another 20 percent.
Since I spent the money, I no longer have it, causing me to feel more financially insecure.
If an early-out were offered to me now, I wouldn’t automatically take it because I haven’t saved $X.
Therefore, my choices might have prevented me from obtaining the thing I wanted most.

I wrote in a previous entry about the desperation I have heard in the voices of those wishing to enter the voiceover industry. These days, I’m also noticing desperation in the actions of fellow voice talent. Whether they are spending their days networking with voice actors and prospects on dozens of sites or chasing every low-paying lead on the pay-for-play sites, they seem to be desperate for the next client and the next job.

While you want and need to be focused on your voiceover career, I’ve learned that single-mindedness of purpose to the exclusion of everything else will invoke the Law of Paradoxical Intent. By relaxing and accepting my life, I not only have found balance, but voiceover jobs and new clients have come to me with little or no effort on my part.

My life as a secret agent

28 March 2009

Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don’t matter
and those who matter don’t mind.
— Dr. Seuss

This year marks 3 important anniversaries in my life:

10 years as a professional voiceover artist
20+ years as a loving wife to Drew
25+ years as a hard-working employee of the Internal Revenue Service

While faithful readers of this blog (and I thank you for your continued interest and support!) know about the first 2 things in the list, the third item may surprise you. Like many voiceover talent, I have a day job, but I refused to talk or write about it until now.

Having a full-time job as an IT specialist and working as a voice talent has made me feel like a secret agent with a double life. My voiceover business is not a secret from my employer; I followed the rules to obtain permission to have an outside business. However, I have felt that I couldn’t talk about my voiceover work while on the job at the IRS because I worried that people there would think I’m slacking off in my duties or not interested in promotion.

At the same time, I wouldn’t talk about my day job to voiceover peers for fear of losing respect and credibility. In addition, I felt that prospects and clients would look elsewhere for voice talent, thinking that I’m not serious about voiceover work, don’t need the money from the gig, and/or might not be available to perform their script on deadline.

So why am I confessing now?

I started work at the IRS while still a teenager in high school. I never dreamed that I would spend a full career there!

One day in 1996, I almost quit in anger over a reorganization that sent me to a job I didn’t want. My very wise dad kept me from making a rash decision. I stayed, continued to do my best at work, and started my part-time voice-over business 3 years later.

Voiceover may seem like a career change, but it has called to me for my entire life. Beginning in 5th grade, my goal was always to be the voice of a cartoon character. I also aspired to be a talk show host and play-by-play announcer for major league baseball. When I went to college, I earned my degree in radio and TV journalism. I interned at a TV and a radio station and briefly worked at a radio station because I thought that was the best path to get my voice into commercials and eventually animation.

In my case, the career change happened in reverse. I did not plan my 25-year odyssey through IRS information technology positions: programmer, programmer analyst, first-line manager to a programming staff, LAN/e-mail/WAN administrator, and now technical advisor to a senior IT manager.

In recent years, though, I have learned that every moment has meaning. My communications skills were highly valued in these very technical positions, and now my tremendous IT knowledge is a major asset in my voiceover business, whether used for marketing, equipment purchase/installation/troubleshooting or narrations for e-learning modules and corporate videos.

I finally accept that I am where I am supposed to be and doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I may not be a full-time voiceover actor, but I know that day is coming. In the meantime, I’m doing all that I can to prepare for that day while still enjoying my present life. One way to enjoy my life more is to stop worrying what other people will think about me in both of my careers!

By turning in my secret agent’s badge, I am relieved that at long last I can be who I am and say what I feel. The benefit to you, dear reader, is that I now am liberated to share previously withheld observations and discoveries that may help others on their own paths of career change, artistic expression and self-fulfillment.

Restaurant menus and your voice-over business

25 February 2009

If you follow me on Twitter (and if you don’t, what are you waiting for?), you might have seen these 2 recent tweets about restaurants and not realized they could contain significance to you as a voice-over talent:

Drew and I eat out several times a week. When I find something I like at a particular restaurant, I almost always order the same thing on each visit. For the longest time, my choice of chicken fingers was at Chili’s. I would ask them to cook the chicken using the Awesome Blossom batter, and I’d request the Blossom dipping sauce. The Blossom batter and sauce combo gave the chicken a real kick.

Last year, O’Charley’s introduced its Pretzel Crunch Chicken with dijon dipping sauce, and I had a new favorite restaurant for chicken fingers. In addition to a distinct taste, the pretzel coating added texture to the chicken. I would order the Pretzel Crunch Chicken practically every Sunday. We always ask for the same server, so I didn’t even have to place my order. She knew I wanted Pretzel Crunch Chicken.

You can imagine my tremendous shock disappointment to discover last week that not one but both restaurants removed from their menu the thing that I liked best at each place! To put my thoughts in perspective, let me share another recent tweet from Todd Schnick, a bright Atlanta marketer whose tweets and blog posts I enjoy:

Once I learned about O’Charley’s menu change, what did I do? I went back to Chili’s. Now that I know Chili’s has also removed the Awesome Blossom batter and sauce, I’ll be looking for some other restaurant to thrill me with a tantalizing flavor of chicken fingers.

If you’re waiting for a take-out order based on my restaurant experiences, here are two entrees for your consideration:

1) If you change your menu of available selections, you can expect your client list to change.

I stopped marketing my commercial demo in September 2007. Since that time — and not surprisingly — few people who have visited my web site have asked me to voice a commercial. I expect to receive regular inquiries about voicing radio and TV commercials once I complete my new commercial demo in April under Nancy Wolfson’s direction.

I don’t try to be all things to all people or market myself as a voice all projects from promos to phone prompts. However, I do think it’s important to have and market demos for each of your niche markets. If a prospective client visits your site, they will soon leave if they don’t see their particular area represented among your menu of voice-over demos. In fact, some voice actors even create separate web sites to address different types of clients.

2) It’s important to monitor your brand to know when your customers are talking about you. If possible, respond to their complaints, resolve problems and show good will.

Most marketers agree that it requires more time, money and energy to attract new clients than to retain existing ones. In addition, word of mouth is a powerful source of both referrals and refusals.

Although I posted my messages on a very popular social networking site, neither O’Charley’s nor Chili’s has responded to me. Even more surprising, GoDaddy.com didn’t respond to me on Super Bowl Sunday when I and dozens of others tweeted about GoDaddy’s sleazy ad that prompted me to immediately move — as in before the Super Bowl ended — the one domain that I had registered with them to another registrar.

Just as I’m not all things to all people, I also realize I can’t be in all places at once. One tool I use to monitor my brand is Google Alerts. I have created alerts for my name and all of my web site domains. I receive e-mails when Google finds my name or domain names across the web. Not only have I been notified when someone references me or links to one of my sites in their blog post, but I also have discovered an instance where someone has violated my copyright by re-posting one of my blog entries without attribution.

An added benefit to Google alerts is that you can create up to 1000 alerts for free and track anything you want. For instance, you may want to track job listings only within a particular web site without going to that site each day. You could enter an alert using the format

site:websitename.com voiceover

Note that you wouldn’t enter the leading http://www. for this syntax. Google provides extensive documentation to help you narrowly define your search terms. Also, be careful that you go to http://www.Google.com/alerts to set up your alerts. I saw another site that had a similar address but charged a monthly fee for the service.

I’ve been writing for a while, so I’ll stop now and head over to Twitter to see news from Todd Schnick and my other Tweeple. After all this discussion about chicken fingers, perhaps it’s time to try Zaxby’s for supper tonight.

A mathematical viewpoint for success

4 February 2009

Here is a fun little exercise that someone sent me which contains indisputable mathematical logic. It also made me laugh because it seems true, whether we’re talking about becoming a successful voiceover talent or anything else.

Using a strictly mathematical viewpoint, what makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103? What makes up 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
are represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%
and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And

P-E-R-S-I-S-T-A-N-C-E
16+5+18+19+9+19+20+1+14+3+5 = 129%

And finally

P-E-R-S-E-V-E-R-A-N-C-E< 16+5+18+19+5+22+5+18+14+3+5 = 130%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, Attitude will get you there. However, it’s the Persistance and Perseverance that will put you over the top!

5 keys to confident cold calling

18 January 2009

A couple of recent newspaper headlines from different cities gleefully state that you can make lots of easy of money as a professional voice talent after taking only a 2-hour introductory group class. According to these articles, a particular group of voice-over teachers seems to be traveling through the country and conducting these “if you can talk, you can break into voiceover and make fabulous money” seminars at community colleges.

I thought about writing a blog entry warning people about the false hopes generated by the headlines and the teaching company, but I decided against it. I don’t want to insist that someone considering a voice-over career must follow a certain path. Besides, who am I to predict the outcome of such a class? I suppose it could happen that someone is blessed with the most distinct voice, the most amazing cold-reading skills, the most transparent and authentic interpretation, and the most exciting contacts who are looking for a shining new star to voice their national TV commercial/e-learning project/PBS documentary/trade show video/major animated movie. A 2-hour class is certainly sufficient for this kind of person to be able to hang out the sign as a professional voice talent and have clients with unlimited checking accounts flocking to them with no effort.

For the rest of us, though, gaining work as a voice talent requires much more — more confidence, more training, more marketing and more relationships, which all require more time, money and effort on the part of the voice actor.

I started writing this entry on Friday, 16 January. When I got up that morning, the Atlanta temperature was a frigid 14 degrees. A good use of time on such a bitterly cold day — or any day when you have free time — is to work on your marketing plan, particularly making cold calls. (You knew there was a tie-in with the weather somewhere!)

When I decided to become a voice-over actor in the late 90s, I was perpetually excited during the process of making my demo. I then hit a brick wall when it came to marketing it. What good does a fab demo do me if I can’t make myself call people who not only might be interested in hearing it but actually willing and able to hire me?

The thing that propelled me to make the first call was the following passage that I read in Rick Crandall’s book 1001 Ways to Market Your Services…Even If You Hate to Sell:

Overcoming Your Cold-Calling Fears

Cold calling scares all of us sometime. Ram Yellen deals with his fears by asking himself these questions:

1) What’s the worst thing that can happen if I make this call or proposal, or ask for a referral? (They can say no, no, a thousand times no! –or is that from a Victorian soap opera?)

2) What’s the best thing that could happen? (You could make a new, lifelong friend.)

3) What would I do if I knew that this person needed my services tomorrow?

— Pin up a picture of someone successful in your business and ask yourself what he or she would do in this situation. (If it’s a competitor, you can do it just to show them up!)

— Acknowledge the fear and do it anyway.

The bit about the Victorian soap opera cracked me up. Even now, I still have times when I feel fear or anxiety about making calls to pursue my voice-over career. I think about the “1000 times no” line, and it gives me courage (after I stop laughing!) to make the call.

I admit, though, that I still prefer to initiate conversations in writing or in person. The recipient of your calls could think that you don’t have any work. They may hold the perception that voice talent who are in high demand don’t have time to make prospecting calls.

Still, phone calls are sometimes necessary. For the times you choose to include phone calls in your marketing mix, here are 5 tips that will boost your confidence and courage:

1) Research the organization before deciding to call them.

Google is my friend. I can search for the type of organization and then find company web sites, on-line profiles on social networking sites and possibly news stories related to the target company. Many times, you can see portfolios of past work and get contact information. I can’t tell you how many phone calls and e-mails I have received from people who want to work for me as a voice talent. In those cases, I always know that the person has not done their research to identify the nature of my business. Good research will also move the phone call away from the “iceberg right ahead” category of cold call disaster.

2) With your research completed, identify some reason for the call.<

Repeat after me: “it’s not what they can do for me; it’s what I can do for them.” You may say you were updating your database, had a referral, saw they are members of a mutual professional group, etc. However, you don’t want to call and offer unsolicited advice about improving the business.

3) Write and rehearse a script that you will use when the other party comes on the line.

We voice talent always read from scripts, yet many people ignore this step when deciding to call potential clients. You want to state how you found them and be ready with a list of questions and/or a desired outcome for the call. A recent post in the Marketing Mix blog should give you fantastic ideas for a boilerplate script. Just like any voice-over script, you will want to practice it and possibly record it so that you can deliver it fluidly and easily.

4) Write another script for leaving a message.

You don’t want to be caught off-guard and leave a rambling message on voice mail. You also want to motivate the person to return the call. Saying something like “I have some information that may allow you to create an e-learning module at lower cost” is much more intriguing to the prospect than “I’m wondering if you ever need to use voice talent.” The second sentence is especially ineffective since it immediately indicates that you haven’t done your research.

Also, be sure to state your name and return number clearly at the beginning AND end of the call. How many messages have you heard where someone rushed through a message and then blurted out their name and phone number at the end of the call so fast that you had to rewind the message more than once to understand it? You don’t want to be one of those kind of people, do you?

5) Be prepared for follow-up actions.

Take careful notes during the conversation. You may have promised to send your demo or some information on the web, or you may hear some other action that you could take, like meeting them at an upcoming event. Track your needed actions with appointment entries on your calendar.

As you can see, even your preparation for your first prospecting call can require more time and energy than the 2 hours expended in an introductory voice-over class. Perhaps a more appropriate name for the traveling voice-over seminars would be:

“If you can talk, you can call people on the phone to discuss voice-over work with them, and you may even make some money as a professional voice talent if you have an outstanding demo and make enough calls to market it, being sure to do your research ahead of time.”